Absorbent articles, such as feminine hygienic articles (sanitary pads and panty liners), and adult incontinence pads are often worn in the crotch area of a user's undergarments. Prior to use, these types of articles are frequently individually wrapped in a compact package for ease of handling and discreteness. These articles are designed to provide some sense of normalcy in a user's daily activities by absorbing and retaining uncontrolled body excretions and avoiding embarrassing staining of garments. To accommodate the needs of many different types of consumers, various shapes and sizes of such absorbent articles have been developed. Features have been introduced to enable use of these articles with relative ease. In this regard, some of these absorbent articles have included wings or flaps (sometimes also named tabs) to enable the articles to be firmly secured to the garment facing side of a user's undergarments. These flaps or wings may either be integral extensions of layers of the main body of an absorbent article, or alternatively, may be separate structural attachments to the main body of an absorbent article. The wings are often provided with a garment attachment means or fastener, typically in the form of an adhesive patch, for affixing them in place to the underside of a user's undergarments in the crotch region. It has been found that the wings provide both a protective barrier at the lengthwise edges of the article, to alleviate exudate leakage, and also a means for maintaining the product in a stable position during use. An example of such absorbent articles with wings, can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,285,343 to McNair, U.S. Pat. No. 4,589,876 to Van Tilberg, EP 0637234 to 3M Company and U.S. Pat. No. 6,502,695 to Kim, each of which is hereby incorporated by reference thereto in its entirety.
The wing adhesive patches or other types of fastener systems (such as a combination of mechanical and adhesive systems, or solely mechanical systems) employed by such articles are often covered by adhesive release sheets (fastener covers) in the case of adhesive patch systems. The release sheets are typically in the form of coated papers or films, such that the adhesive components are not exposed to the environment prior to use, and can be easily separated from the release sheet at the time of use. The release sheets may be individual sheets separately attached to each wing adhesive patch, or alternatively “bridge”-like sheets which cover multiple wings with one release sheet. If the sheets are separate individual sheets, they may be discrete release sheets, each positioned on one wing adhesive patch, or lightly adhesively attached to each other for ease of removal, one at a time, in order to avoid inadvertent sticking of adhesive patches to undesired locations. Alternatively, the single bridge-like release sheet may be a rectangular sheet or a rectangular sheet which includes a perforation for later separation. The covered wings may be folded over either the top side or bottom side of the article during manufacture, and pre-use storage of the article. In such case, if the wings are folded over the top side of the article, the topsheet of the wing would come in contact with the topsheet of the article, and the backsheet of the wing would be situated facing the wing release sheet(s). In the case of purely mechanical wing fasteners (hook and loop devices), such wings are typically also folded over either the top side or bottom side of the article during manufacture and pre-use storage of the article. Such mechanical fasteners on opposing wings, are often adhered directly to each other in pre-use storage condition.
The absorbent articles may also include additional fastener systems on the underside of the central main body of the article, so as to provide either adhesive or other mechanisms for securing the longitudinal central axis of the article to the longitudinal axis of the crotch region (user facing side) of a user's undergarments when in use. Such additional fastener system frequently consists of a series of adhesive patches (also known as garment adhesive patches) along the longitudinal axis of the garment facing backsheet of the article. The garment adhesive patches may be covered by one or more separate release sheets or fastener covers (as with the wing adhesive patches) and are typically comprised of the same releasable sheet materials as the wing adhesive release sheet(s). If the garment adhesive patches are present and covered with separate release sheets, the release sheets each need to be removed by the consumer in a separate step prior to adhering the article to his/her undergarment. Essentially, the consumer needs to remove the one or more wing adhesive release sheets and then remove the one or more garment adhesive release sheets prior to donning the article.
Alternatively, the garment adhesive release sheets may be adhesively attached via several patches of adhesive, to the inside surface of an outer pouch/wrapper, if the article is stored in an individual pouch/package. Typically in this configuration, the adhesive strength of these patches is stronger than that of the garment adhesive patches which hold the article to the release sheet. In this instance, when a user removes the article from its outer pouch or wrapper, the release sheet remains with the wrapper for disposal, but the article is free to be removed from the release sheet. The consumer would then only need to separately remove the wing adhesive release sheets prior to product application. Alternatively, the garment adhesive patches are directly covered by the inside surface of the individual storage pouch/wrapper (rather than a separate release sheet) during the manufacturing and folding operation, such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,556,146 to Swanson and U.S. Pat. No. 5,181,610 to Quick which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety. In such instances, the individual pouch is made from a film or film laminate which includes a release coating, such as a silicone coating, for ease of peel of the article from the outer pouch material prior to use.
Depending on the type and size of absorbent article, such articles may have one or more sets of wings or flaps to help stabilize the article in use and to prevent leakage. For example, for sanitary pads which are typically used daily by women during their monthly menstrual cycles, an article with one centrally positioned set of wings (along the longitudinal axis) may be preferred. For sanitary pads which are to be used over night by women to capture menstrual exudates during sleep, larger pads with two or more sets of wings may be preferred. Such larger pads provide a sense of security for women, knowing that they will not need to arise to check or change their pads until morning. Such pads typically include a central or more frontwardly positioned wing set for adhering to the underside of the user's undergarments, and a rearwardly positioned wing set to adhere to the inside of a user's undergarments in the buttocks region. Similarly, for adult incontinence pads, physically larger and higher absorbent capacity pads may be desired, also accompanied by multiple sets of leakage preventing and fastening wings.
In absorbent articles with wings, various configurations of adhesive release sheets are often described for use to cover the wing adhesive patches and garment adhesive patches, because of the inconvenience of removing multiple pieces of paper during the product application process. For example, in early product configurations, the consumer removed the article from the wrapper and then separately removed a separate garment adhesive release sheet and wing adhesive release sheet(s) prior to donning and use of the article. In this configuration, the absorbent article is not attached to the individual storage pouch in any way. Such operation required between two and three separate action steps by the consumer prior to application of the article to a user's undergarments (donning), and left the consumer with multiple pieces of material for separate disposal (as in the pouch material, and two or more release sheet materials, depending on whether the wings each had separate wing adhesive release sheets).
In later alternative designs, also described in the literature, the article design includes a garment adhesive release sheet itself bonded or not, to the outer pouch, and a single bridge-like wing adhesive release sheet not bonded to the outer pouch. Such package requires from one to two separate action steps on the part of the consumer, prior to applying the product to their undergarment. In still another alternative configuration, the garment adhesive release sheet(s) and wing adhesive release sheet(s) are instead all additionally affixed to a surface portion of the outer pouch material and are removed in one operation upon removal of the article from the pouch. In such a configuration, which is often preferred by a consumer, essentially one piece of waste material is generated for a single disposal. The adhesive strengths of the adhesive patches connecting release sheets to the pouch/wrapper, are each stronger than the strengths connecting the article to the release sheets, as typically the latter adhesive is of a light pressure sensitive adhesive variety, and the former is of a more permanent, cured non-tacky adhesive variety. Further, the consumer does not have to manipulate multiple pieces of release sheets during the article application, which could lead to adhesive patches being inadvertently stuck to either other portions of the article itself, or unintended areas of the consumer undergarment/outergarments. Such inadvertent adhesion of the article to unintended locations leads to consumer frustration. Examples of bridge-like release sheets can be seen in EP0527171 to Davis, EP 1 327 429 to Kashiwaga, and EP 1 142 546 to Luizzi. Such bridge-like release sheets may require multiple steps of removal prior to use. Structural configurations for one step removal of release sheets from a single wing set-containing article are described for example, in EP 865264 to Hansson, U.S. Pat. No. 6,074,376 to Mills, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,683,377 to Mizutani and U.S. Pat. No. 6,502,695 to Kim.
So as to accommodate the structural challenges presented by multiple wing set-containing articles, numerous other release sheet configurations have been described in the patent art for removal in one or multiple steps. Some designs for example, are described in WO98/20,823 to Snauwaert, WO 98/25,561, WO 98/53,781 and WO 98/53,782 to Hasegawa, WO 99/25,285 and WO 99/55,268 to Nishida, and WO 98/42,285, WO 98/42,287, and WO 98/42,289 to Shimizu.
Despite each of these configurations there is still a need for an individually packaged absorbent article with efficient adhesive release sheet designs for long, multiple wing set-containing articles, and which still provides the consumer with a compacted package that offers the capability for removal of all release sheets in one operation, such that the consumer has only one piece of material waste to dispose of. The need is especially evident in longer absorbent products which may be used for high absorbency applications or overnight applications.
As indicated, during manufacture, the absorbent articles are often folded along one or multiple fold lines into a more compact configuration, and then placed into the individual storage pouch, package or wrapper, until use. The individual pouch or package protects the article from soiling and contamination before use and allows the user to carry one or multiple absorbent articles in a purse or pocket for later use without damage. Such pouch also provides a somewhat inconspicuous appearance to the absorbent article, such that a casual observer would not recognize the article for what it actually is, thereby sparing the user from potential embarrassment. A folded article in an individual pouch has therefore become a desirable consumer feature for these types of products. However, it has often been challenging to fold a long and high absorbent capacity article into a compact package that still offers the consumer advantages of one or few product application/donning/disposal steps. There is therefore a need for a compact individual package for long absorbent products with efficient placement of adhesive release sheets.
In the absorbent article field, it has also been desirable to include elastic components along an article's longitudinal side edges so as to promote a closer fit of the article to the consumer's body in use. Unfortunately, the folding of such articles for packaging often interferes with the long term performance of such elastic components, when the article is ultimately removed from the packaging and used. It has been found that the fold lines can deform elastic components such that their performance is impacted over time. There is therefore a need for a design for an individual package for a folded article, which allows for efficient removal of adhesive release sheets in one operation, and which also does not negatively impact the elastic performance of an article's elastic components during use.